A few
thousand great apes currently live in the United States. Some
2,000 chimpanzees are in laboratories, 800-900 in zoos, and a few
in entertainment. Ten to twenty orang-utans are used for
entertainment, fifteen to twenty in laboratories, and several
hundred are kept in zoos. Almost 300 gorillas are in zoos, ten to
fifteen in laboratories, and currently none are known to be used
for entertainment, though one is kept on display in a shopping
centre in Tacoma, Washington.

Two main
factors have prevented the numbers of great apes in laboratories
from increasing significantly in recent years: their low rate of
reproduction in captivity and the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
CITES, based in Switzerland, oversees a trade treaty signed by 111
nations, including the UK and the USA. It has drastically
diminished the export of many species - including great apes -
from their native habitats, though illegal shipments still occur.
This leaves to experimenters seeking protected animals those
smuggled into the country or those born in captivity.

Chimpanzees in a Laboratory

In 1987, a
group called True Friends entered SEMA (formerly Meloy), a
laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, where chimpanzees and many
other primates were known to be kept for experiments under
contract with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). True
Friends photographed and videotaped the laboratory and removed
four chimpanzees, providing concrete evidence of conditions under
which animals lived and died at SEMA. People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals (PETA) made the facts public, adding to its
report information obtained from government documents and other
written sources. Inasmuch as standards of care for animals in
laboratories are determined by the same criteria throughout the
USA, and government inspections are conducted on the same basis
and by the same agencies at all facilities, the story of SEMA can
be considered broadly representative of other US research
laboratories, but particulars must always be documented to be
considered accurate.

At the time
of the True Friends' raid on SEMA, the company was infecting many
kinds of primates with influenza, hepatitis and other diseases, as
well as giving them cancer and infecting them with HIV, the human
AIDS virus. Chimpanzees were infected with hepatitis and HIV.
Experimenters would record symptoms and the course of the
illnesses and test possible treatments.

Nearly 700
primates were living alone in isolettes - steel cages designed for
one animal, devoid of anything that could provide stimulation.
Cages with front doors of metal mesh or bars had solid sides,
preventing animals living side by side from seeing each other.
Large rooms were filled with these isolettes, so the animals could
hear each other and in some cases could see each other, but could
not socialise. Infected with diseases, animals spent their entire
lives in this way. A chimpanzee conceivably might live fifty years
in an isolette, leaving it only when experimental procedures or
cage maintenance required, or after his or her death.

According to
the contract, SEMA experimenters were to carry out NIH
researchers' protocols and were 'to house and maintain nonhuman
primates while conducting directed AIDS studies and studies of
various enteric and respiratory diseases'. This same contract,
executed on 18 December 1984, stated:

The
Contractor shall provide isolated care and housing for chimpanzees
(or other animal models if directed by the Contracting Officer) to
be used for the study of Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
(AIDS). All animals to be used for this project shall be housed in
one room separate and distinct from all other animals.

It further
states:

Specifically,
the Contractor shall:

(1) Provide
an animal holding facility capable of holding approximately nine
chimpanzees (5 of which weighing up to

25 kilograms
and 4 of which weighing up to 20 kilograms . . .) for AIDS
research.

(2) Hold
these animals in cages and isolator units which will be provided
by the Government.

(3) Treat or
infect, at the direction of the Project Officer, the animals with
the material supplied and obtain bleedings, biopsies, perform
laparotomies, and other specimens which will be analyzed by NIH
scientists for existence of infection. (The Government estimates
the following on an animal basis: 500 bleedings
[plasmaphereses/leukophereses]; 100 biopsies; and 100
laparotomies).[1]

(The contract
also described experiments using squirrel monkeys, rhesus monkeys
and other primates.)

One
experiment contracted by the National Institute of Allergies and
Infectious Diseases (NIAID, a branch of NIH) called for SEMA to
inoculate up to ten chimpanzees each year, indefinitely, with
HTLV-III or other newly recognised human retroviruses and follow
them for evidence of infection.[2]

Like any
laboratory under contract with NIH, SEMA is required to maintain
accreditation with the American Association for Accreditation of
Laboratory Animal Care (AAALAC), a non-profit-making organisation,
by adhering to US Public Health Service (PHS) guidelines for
animal care. PHS guidelines state:

The housing
system [for animals used in research] should:

• provide
space that is adequate, permits freedom of movement and normal
postural adjustments, and has a resting place appropriate to the
species;

For
chimpanzees weighing more than 25 kilograms (55 pounds), the
Guide recommends a minimum cage size of 2.33 square metres
(25.1 square feet) of floor area for each animal and a minimum
height of 2.13 metres (84 inches). For chimpanzees of 15-25
kilograms (33-55 pounds), the minimum is 0.74 square metres (8
square feet) per animal, with a height of 91.44 centimetres (36
inches). Thus, in the contract quoted above, calling for some
chimpanzees weighing more than 25 kilograms and some weighing
less, a chimpanzee weighing 24 kilograms (53 pounds) could be kept
for years in a cage one-third the area of that inhabited by a
chimpanzee only slightly larger at 26 kilograms (57 pounds).[4]

Like all US
research facilities using animals, SEMA is also governed by the
federal Animal Welfare Act, which since 1966 has required the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS), to ensure that animals used in
experiments, in exhibitions or as 'pets' receive humane care and
treatment.[5]

In the two
years before PETA publicised information about SEMA (1985-6),
APHIS inspection reports showed nineteen violations of the Animal
Welfare Act in fifteen categories, including space requirements,
feeding, watering, cleaning, housekeeping, veterinary care, pest
control, employee training, drainage, interior surfaces, lighting
and ventilation. All five inspection reports over those two years
stated that primates were 'too large for their cages'. With regard
to cleanliness, an inspection report stated:

Feeding
receptacles were described as 'grossly contaminated'. One report
said, 'Given the . . . deficiencies, it is imperative that both
more personnel and better trained personnel be hired to correct
them.'[6]

In the same
two-year period, sixteen failures to meet PHS guidelines were
reported by AAALAC inspectors. As a result, SEMA was placed on
probationary status. Between 1981 and 1986, SEMA was on probation
almost three times more often than it was accredited. Deficiencies
in 1985-6 included confining chimpanzees to cages which did not
conform to Animal Welfare Act and AAALAC requirements; some were
in cages 40 inches high, 26 inches wide, and 31 inches deep -
smaller than the minimum standard for any chimpanzee.
Faecal material was caked on to bars and sides of cages, and there
was excessive urine build-up on suspended waste troughs. Many
animals were in need of veterinary care; their symptoms included
shivering, skin abrasions, hair loss and vomiting. One monkey was
found lying dead on his cage floor.

From 1981 to
1984, SEMA had an extremely high 'accidental' death toll of
seventy-eight animals, including five chimpanzees. A chimpanzee
known as No. A51 choked on his own vomit; SEMA attributed this to
'a breakdown of normal procedures'. An NIH official said that
'events that led to the death of [chimpanzee] A117', who
suffocated in a cage that was too small, 'can and must be
prevented'. One chimpanzee died because he was unable to breathe
after being anaesthetised with keta-mine. The attending
veterinarian said that because of increased workloads and too
small a staff, technicians were anaesthetising more than one
chimpanzee at a time. Consequently, each animal was not adequately
monitored to ensure his or her safety. The chairman of the Council
on Accreditation of AAALAC wrote in March 1986, 'Presently,
primates that die from unsuspected cause, unrelated to
experimental protocol, are necropsied . . . Council is concerned,
however, that detailed histopathological or microbiological
procedures are not undertaken to establish a definitive
diagnosis.'[7]

As clearly
shown in the video footage obtained at SEMA by True Friends, many
of the animals living in isolettes there had become psychotic.
Some continually spun in circles and did not react to the presence
of visitors. An older male chimpanzee, identified as No. 1164, was
crouched on his cage floor, rocking back and forth and mumbling
incessantly.[8]

In September
1992, the president of SEMA, now called Bioqual, allowed one area
of the facility, a kind of 'chimpanzee showcase', to be visited
and photographed. This consisted of a continuous series of
partitioned kennel-style runs with Plexiglass sides. The
chimpanzees in these individual enclosures - there were about
twenty of them - could see other chimpanzees in front of, behind
and alongside themselves. There was a playroom containing toys and
climbing apparatus. In their individual enclosures, the
chimpanzees had something to swing on, a few toys and an elevated
sleeping platform, and the visitors were told that the chimpanzees
received two pieces of fruit each day. The president stated that
although hepatitis, influenza and other infectious disease
experiments are still carried out at Bioqual, chimpanzees are no
longer used in AIDS studies there.[9]

The
Orang-utan Trade

Only about
20,000 orang-utans still live freely on the islands of Borneo and
Sumatra. Orang-utans are highly prized by zoos, circuses, animal
trainers in the entertainment business and wealthy private
collectors.

Because of
their rarity, orang-utan babies fetch a high price - as high as
$50,000 in the United States.[10]
Trappers usually kill the mothers - and sometimes other adults and
babies - to obtain one young orang-utan. Taking into account the
high mortality rate suffered by captured animals, animal rights
advocates estimate that certainly two or three, and perhaps as
many as ten, animals die for each one who survives the long
journey to a zoo or other destination.[11]

The case of
one group of captured orang-utans, known as the 'Bangkok Six', has
focused public attention on the international primate trade. The
six orang-utans were transported without food or water from Borneo
to Singapore to Bangkok, Thailand, stuffed into two wooden crates
marked 'birds'. The crates, their lids nailed shut, had only
pencil-diameter holes for ventilation. One box, carrying three
orang-utans, was shipped upside-down. Had officials at Bangkok
airport not become curious enough about the un-bird-like cries
coming from the crates to X-ray them, the animals would have gone
to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and from there possibly to a Moscow zoo.

The shipment,
marked 'personal baggage', also included two sia-mangs, who were
presumably to go to Belgrade Zoo as payment for overseeing the
orang-utans' passage to Moscow. Although Thailand is a member of
CITES, in 1990 it allowed the import and export of non-native
species.[12]
In fact, officials at Bangkok airport seized the orangutans and
siamangs not because of their endangered status, but because they
were labelled incorrectly.

Kurt Schafer,
a German resident of Thailand to whom the 'personal baggage'
belonged, was charged with no offences by Thai officials, but he
was charged in Singapore with exporting the orang-utans and
siamangs without official documentation. He voluntarily flew to
Singapore, where he was fined just $1,200.[13]
The fine in Singapore for failing to flush a public toilet is
$100.[14]
(In Germany, Schafer was sentenced to seven weeks in jail,[15]
though he could have gone to jail for five years for smuggling
orang-utans.[16])
Singapore officials cited three 'mitigating factors' in Schafer's
case: he was 'do[ing] a friend a favour,' as he told Singapore
officials, who then failed to ask the name of the 'friend'; he
returned to Singapore voluntarily for legal processing; and the
orang-utans and siamangs had been confiscated.[17]

Volunteers
from the Wildlife Fund of Thailand named the orangutans Bambi,
Bimbo, Fossey, Ollie, Tanya and Thomas. All were suffering from
pneumonia, dehydration and parasitic infestations.[18]
Ollie was not expected to live when the International Primate
Protection League (IPPL) and the Orang-utan Foundation sent Diana
Taylor-Snow, an experienced orang-utan care-giver, to help tend to
the orangutans and prepare them for release into the wild. Ollie
improved, but Bimbo, who had liver and spleen damage (possibly
caused by having been shipped upside-down from Singapore), was
also plagued by frequent sneezes, a runny nose, diarrhoea and
ringworm. Despite his physical problems, Bimbo was curious and
vivacious. He would make the box he was in move across the floor
by leaping around inside it, and, by observing his surroundings,
quickly learned how to reach what he wanted.[19]

Taylor-Snow
and Wildlife Fund of Thailand volunteers nursed the orang-utans
back to the best health possible, given their serious condition,
then flew with them back to their home in the forests of Borneo to
release them.

In the
meantime, the story of the Bangkok Six shifted from the wilds of
Borneo to a courtroom in Miami, Florida, where, on 19 February
1992, Matthew Block, head of Worldwide Primates, was indicted by a
Miami grand jury for his alleged role in the shipment of the
orang-utans, which constituted a violation of CITES laws and the
US Endangered Species Act. Block was thought to be the 'friend'
for whom Kurt Schafer was doing a 'favour' by accompanying the
Bangkok Six shipment in February 1990.

Born in 1961,
Matthew Block started trading in exotic birds when he was 13, and,
while still young, he became a major figure in the animal import
world. By the time he was 21, his exotic bird business was
bringing in over $600,000 a year, but stiffer government
regulations and more competition persuaded Block to shift to
primates and other animals, including elephants, sought by zoos.
By 1989, his $1.2-million-a-year enterprise was importing 2,000
monkeys a year[20]
and, with about a quarter of the US market,[21]
was one of the top three suppliers of nonhuman primates for
experimentation.[22]

Block,
steadfastly maintaining his innocence, was to go on trial for the
Bangkok Six case on 24 August 1992, but on 24 August Hurricane
Andrew battered southern Florida and the trial was postponed.
Delays caused by the hurricane clogged Miami's legal dockets;
meanwhile, Block's attorneys worked out a plea bargain: Block
would plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges if the two felony
charges were dropped. News of the plea bargain initially cheered
the world's animal traders, but in December 1992 the presiding
judge, James Kehoe, citing several hundred letters from all over
the world expressing concern that justice be served, refused to
accept the plea bargain, and a trial date was set for March 1993.

On 9 February
1993, almost three years to the day since the fateful shipment of
the Bangkok Six, amid allegations by prosecutors that Block had
been involved in a conspiracy with the KGB to smuggle the
orang-utans into Russia, Matthew Block pleaded guilty. He will be
sentenced on 15 April; the maximum punishment is five years in
prison and a fine of $250,000.[23]

Only two of
the baby orang-utans survived.[24]
'Ollie and Bimbo died in my arms,' says Taylor-Snow, explaining
that it was hard to believe they were alive when she found them.
'They were grey,' rather than the normal deep red-brown of
orang-utans. She later heard that Fossey and Thomas died,
succumbing to the permanent damage sustained by any infant
deprived of food, water and air as were the Bangkok Six.[25]

As long as
the orang-utan trade continues, this can happen to any who are
unfortunate enough to be captured and taken from their mothers in
the forests of Borneo and Sumatra.

Gorillas
in Zoos

Money for
research involving gorillas became scarce in the late 1970s, the
cost of maintaining them being approximately five times that of
using the same number of monkeys. Since chimpanzees were
classified as a 'threatened' rather than an 'endangered' species
like gorillas and orang-utans, chimpanzees remained in labs, but
most gorillas and orang-utans were transferred to zoos. Yerkes, by
1988 the only primate research centre keeping gorillas, planned to
place all of its gorillas and orang-utans in zoos by 1990, though
a few of each species remain at Yerkes.

Timmy, a
silverbacked lowland gorilla, began living at the Cleveland
Metroparks Zoo in 1966. Isolated from other gorillas for thirty
years, he did not get along well with two females to whom he was
introduced, and did not mate with them. In 1990, however, the zoo
brought into Timmy's enclosure a female slightly older than Timmy:
Katie, a.k.a. Kribe Kate. Timmy and Katie quickly began to display
affection for each other, playing together, having sexual
relations and sleeping in each other's arms.

The
Metroparks Zoo is a member of the Gorilla Species Survival Plan
(SSP), initiated by the American Association of Zoological Parks
and Aquariums (AAZPA) in 1983 'to optimize captive reproduction in
North American zoos'.[26]
It was hoped that Timmy and Katie would produce offspring, but it
turned out that Katie, who had given birth in the past, now had a
blocked Fallopian tube and was unable to conceive. The zoo made
plans to move Timmy to the Bronx Zoo in New York. This created a
conflict between those who believed Timmy should be treated
primarily as part of the SSP - as a representative of his species,
whose population in the wild is decreasing because human beings
are eating them and destroying their habitat - and those who
wished to see him respected as an individual gorilla with a strong
attachment to another. Timmy was shown to have a very low sperm
count, decreasing his chances of reproducing.

Steve Gove, a
keeper in the Metroparks Zoo Cat and Primate Building who had
worked with Timmy for eighteen years at the time the controversy
arose, opposed moving Timmy to New York:

Timmy is not
a very adaptable gorilla, he's proven that. It has taken him years
to find a mate he was comfortable with. My biggest fear is that
the stress of the move could trigger a heart attack or a stroke.
We also worry that the other gorillas might not accept him and
[might] hurt him.

The least
thing that could happen is that the trauma might send Timmy right
back into his shell. He's been very shy since 1966. It was only
when Katie got here that he opened up. He could very easily go
back to the way he was. None of us want to see that happen.

It sickens me
when people start to put human emotions in animals. And it demeans
the animal. We can't think of them as some kind of magnificent
human being, they are animals. When people start saying animals
have emotions, they cross the bridge of reality.[27]

The general
director of the New York Zoological Society, which includes the
Bronx Zoo, wrote in a letter to a newspaper that gorillas are not
monogamous and that 'Timmy evolved to manage a harem'.[28]

The
California-based animal rights organisation In Defense of Animals,
the Network for Ohio Animal Action, and the Animal Protection
League (Ohio) organised to prevent the move. More than 1,500
people signed petitions in opposition to it. Demonstrations were
held. Attorney Gloria Rowland-Homolak filed for a court order to
prevent the Metro-parks Zoo shipping Timmy to the Bronx Zoo, and
proceedings delayed the move. But in November 1991, Timmy was
sedated and put in a crate on a truck bound for New York, as the
SSP had intended.

After Timmy
was taken away from Metroparks Zoo, a gorilla named Oscar was
introduced into Katie's enclosure. The two gorillas fought. Oscar
bit Katie's toe, which was then amputated, and Katie was also
treated for a bruised back. Eventually, Metroparks Zoo agreed to
transfer Katie to another zoo to prevent further attacks by Oscar,
who is said to have had a previous history of hostile behaviour in
a Kansas zoo. In November 1992, Katie was shipped to Texas in a
crate aboard a train. She now lives in the Fort Worth Zoological
Park.

Days after
the initial brawl between Katie and Oscar, it was reported that
Timmy was not mating with the females at the Bronx Zoo, and Tames
Doherty, general curator of the New York Zoological Society, was
quoted as saying, 'We want the females to be bred. No one wants to
see baby gorillas more than we do,' and that if the ape didn't
'work out', 'we won't keep Timmy indefinitely'.[29]

It was seven
months, May 1992, before Timmy was seen mating with a female
gorilla at the Bronx Zoo. As of November 1992, he was not
confirmed to have impregnated any females despite several matings.
Usually it takes several oestrus cycles before a female gorilla
becomes pregnant, but Timmy's low sperm count may make offspring
all the more unlikely. Meanwhile, an animal protectionist who has
monitored events in the lives of Timmy and Katie wrote,

I was at the
Bronx Zoo in September [1992] and saw Timmy on two occasions. On
both occasions, for the better part of eight hours, Timmy sat on a
rock. The only time he moved off of it was to sit against a wall
for about twenty minutes ... I was in Cleveland prior to going to
New York, and while in Cleveland, I spoke to five people who had
also been to the Bronx Zoo, and their sightings were the same as
mine.[30]

[6]
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service, Inspection of Animal Facilities,
Sites or Premises, Form 18-8, 9 August 1989. See also People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), 'Investigative
Report: SEMA Laboratory, Rockville, Maryland' (1986).